The Eve (6)

Boom!

The cannonball slammed into something with a force that shook the air, and dust billowed up in a choking cloud.

A minute passed, maybe a little more.

The dust settled.

And what was revealed made all of humanity remember.

The terror of being ruled by creatures like him.

"That's impossible…"

Shock. Disbelief. Chaos. The same wave of horror spread across every face nearby.

Yes.

This was the moment humanity's greatest magic—the cannon—had lost.

Felix was still crouched on the ground, trembling. He was coated in dust from head to toe, but there wasn't a single wound on him.

"U-uhh… uhhh…"

He whimpered, paralyzed with fear—then cracked one eye open.

"Wh-what? I'm… I'm alive?"

He scrambled to his feet, patting himself down, then threw his head back and laughed.

"Ahahahaha! Of course! As if the grace of God would ever fall to something as vulgar as a cannon!"

He turned, drinking in the stunned stares all around him.

"Amazing, isn't it! Tell me—how does it feel to witness a miracle with your own eyes?"

What was this, a stage play?

He was drunk on relief at still being alive and high on the glory of what he believed was divine intervention.

Oh, for heaven's sake!!!

What kind of ridiculous miracle was this? The balance urgently needed a patch.

"That's right, you faithless ones. Behold the grace my God has bestowed upon me—absolute defense that blocks every attack from every heretic. The Shield of Faith!"

Flushed with triumph, he threw his arms wide.

"Witness it!"

And he called down the miracle.

A flash—then a translucent sphere bloomed into existence around him. So that was the magic that had stopped the cannon and the arrows.

While he stood there with his eyes squeezed shut, still shaking, the crowd started to murmur.

"Hey, look at that. Is it cracked?"

"Where? Oh. Yeah, it is."

They were right. Hairline fractures ran through the hemisphere. As expected—it hadn't shrugged off a cannonball without a cost.

"A-ahem."

The moment Felix opened his eyes and saw it, he hurriedly dismissed the Shield of Faith from view.

What now?

I wanted to fire another shot, but I was out of cannonballs—and more importantly…

The recoil is murder.

One of my shoulders burned like it was on fire. Taking that kickback bare-handed had clearly been a bad idea.

"Shall we begin again, then? I will send every last one of you to the Lord's side."

He settled into a stance, ready to charge. There had to be some way—

—Ah.

A brilliant idea.

"Felix. You're a priest, aren't you?"

He stopped mid-swing and looked at me.

"I am. Why do you ask all of a sudden?"

"I convert."

"…Excuse me?"

"From this day forward, I am a devout follower of the Goddess."

If the shield only blocked attacks from heretics, then I simply needed to stop being one. Convert now, repent later. Easy.

"There. I've sworn it before a priest. That makes it official, right?"

"Wh-what nonsense! Do you think conversion is that simple?!"

Felix sputtered, words tumbling over each other. He'd clearly realized something had gone very wrong.

"Conversion requires sincerity! The Goddess will never recognize a conversion like that!"

Is that so?

Then I would show him sincerity.

I prayed through tears. Felix stared at me with his mouth hanging open.

"Y-you're insane. Th-there's no way that would work…"

Only one way to find out.

I grabbed a sword from beside me and hurled it at Felix—

Clang!

The blade slipped straight through his magic and reached him. He managed to bat it aside with his own sword, but only just.

"Impossible. Goddess… why? Why would You answer a prayer like that…"

"Heh."

I gave him a mocking laugh.

A prayer like that, was it?

That was a prayer packed with every ounce ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of my heart.

Felix had probably only ever mumbled the boring lines printed in a holy book. Ordinary prayers like that would never satisfy a goddess.

No—it took something raw and magnificent, like mine, to move her. To reach the places his polite little prayers could never touch. The deepest corners of her heart.

"I refuse—I refuse to accept this! This isn't faith!"

Unable to contain his rage, Felix drove his fist into the wall beside him.

Crack!

The stone split.

"Very well. Even without the Shield of Faith, the Goddess's blessing has already lifted me beyond the limits of man."

He leveled his sword at me and spoke in a low, deadly voice.

"I will kill you. I will shatter you completely."

Shatter me? Please.

He was awfully confident in his strength—but so was I. I settled into a stance and focused on every twitch of his body.

Whoosh!

He came at me on a blast of sand and wind, impossibly fast. In the span of a breath the distance between us was gone.

Speed was power.

Riding that absurd velocity, a razor-sharp slash came screaming in. I didn't dodge. I simply met it with equal force.

From the soles of my feet, through my hips, my arm, my hand—and finally into the blade.

Every ounce of strength in my body gathered and crashed into Felix's sword.

And then a sound that shook the entire royal palace—

BOOM!

The impact. It was hard to believe two swords had made that noise.

When was the last time I'd faced an opponent like this? A rival who actually set my blood on fire after years of nothing.

I prepared for the next exchange—

"…What."

Far across the courtyard, Felix was embedded in a wall.

Weren't you supposed to have surpassed human limits?

I'd expected him to at least rank as a decent beast—a bear, maybe. Why was he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠this soft?

We tied up the unconscious Felix and that was that.

Mary sank onto the bed.

Following the pull of gravity, the curves beneath her clothes spilled gently to either side.

Lying there, she turned the recent chaos over in her mind.

The rebellion.

And the Holy See.

Nothing but complications—though both had, thankfully, been resolved.

Thanks to one person in particular.

Henry.

The man who had single-handedly crushed a rebellion and an Inquisitor of the Holy See. The man who would soon be her husband.

She had chosen him for nothing more than a face that was pleasant enough—someone to install as a husband and keep at her side. A well-trained dog who would do as he was told.

That had been the plan.

"How dare he."

A memory surfaced, and Mary's expression twisted.

No matter how desperate the situation had been, what right did he have to step on her back to climb higher? She could still feel the weight of his boot between her shoulder blades.

She had clawed her way to this position so that no one would ever trample her again.

And he had done it to her—the queen of a nation?

For a woman as hungry for power as Mary, it was a humiliation beyond measure.

Worse, her magic didn't work on him. The entire plan was coming apart at the seams.

And yet… she couldn't simply hate him. Other memories refused to leave her alone.

The way he had appeared out of nowhere with information that saved her. The way he had scooped her up and fled from the guards, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠holding her close.

For some reason, that embrace kept rising unbidden, filling every corner of her mind.

"…Annoying."

The word slipped out, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠even Mary flinched.

Annoying? What was she, a teenage girl?

She shook her head hard and forced her thoughts elsewhere.

The wedding.

Naturally, after the previous day's events, the ceremony had been postponed. You couldn't exactly hold a royal wedding while corpses and bloodstains still littered the palace.

What is this, a blood wedding?

It might have suited her personal aesthetic, but the court would have torn her apart for it.

And in truth, the delay was for the best. As long as Henry was immune to her magic, rushing into marriage would be a catastrophic misstep. She needed another approach.

"Ahhh…"

But not tonight. The day had been far too much. Exhaustion pulled at her, and she closed her eyes.

Of course, closing your eyes at night is when the cringe resurfaces. The memory of being stepped on returned in vivid detail.

The moment he had so humiliatingly crushed her underfoot made her cheeks burn—not for any other reason, no. Pure anger. Yes. She was angry. That was why her face was hot as she tried to sleep.

And somehow, the postponed wedding left her just a little irritated too.

She was not the only one disappointed that the wedding had been delayed.

At the heart of the Empire, in the center of the capital, stood a vast building so thoroughly plated in gold that anyone who looked at it would think the same thing:

Ah. You'd need to be an emperor to afford this.

They would be correct. This was the Imperial Palace.

And on the second floor, in a guest suite she had been granted rent-free for the next ninety-nine years, lived a certain woman.

Vivian.

She was staying in this obscenely expensive place thanks to nothing more than the First Prince's pure "goodwill." And she, too, had been eager to attend the wedding.

"What a shame. I really needed to see exactly what was going on."

A beautiful woman with purple hair. The kind of face that made people fall in love at first sight—an appearance overflowing with narrative convenience.

She sighed softly through those lovely lips and continued.

"Mary getting married, though? That event was never in the original."

She had been injured in an accident at the Academy and spent two years bedridden with the mental aftereffects. Then one day, as if by miracle, she had risen from that bed—and ever since, she would occasionally mutter strange, incomprehensible things.

"And of all people, to Henry von Vargas—"

A sudden wave of goosebumps prickled over her skin. She tilted her head, then pressed on.

"—getting engaged to some extra? The butterfly effect is way too strong. Wait. Hold on. Vargas?"

She opened the drawer beside her bed and pulled out a book. Its pages were covered in characters no one in this world would recognize.

"Vargas, Vargas… ah. Him."

The villain from the Southern Admiral arc. The pirate duke's family name was Vargas. So this Henry was probably the duke's son.

How on earth did the plot twist hard enough for him to end up marrying Mary? Granted, she herself had done a few things that could cause ripples—but she still couldn't figure out how it had tangled this badly.

Knock knock.

Someone rapped on the door. Vivian shut the notebook without much care.

"Come in."

A middle-aged butler entered the room.

"My lady. The Admiral has requested an audience."

"The Admiral? No. Tell him to leave."

"Ah… he insists the matter is urgent…"

The butler pleaded, sweat beading on his forehead, but she shook her head without a shred of mercy.

The Southern Admiral. That one needs to be punished a little.

He was the original male lead. She had told him the exact date the queen, Mary, would escape and exactly where she would go—and he still failed to handle it? There were limits to incompetence.

He was banned from seeing her. For a week, at least.

And now… what was she actually going to do?

If she wanted to keep living this reverse-harem life of hers, she had to eliminate the original protagonist somehow.

Elizabeth Tudor—the heroine of the web novel Academy Drift.

So Vivian spent the entire night laying out plan after plan.

And in the process, she noticed something strange.

What is this?

Every time the name Henry crossed her mind while she was plotting, goosebumps raced over her entire body.